Under the Napa Sun
by Morganperidot
Summary: After his death Nash finds himself in Napa with Tess.


Disclaimer: The characters belong to the people who created them. No infringement of rights is intended.

Under the Napa Sun  
By Morganperidot

Nash woke slowly, his vision going from blurry to clear like he was coming up through water. He felt nothing: no pain, no fear, and no sense of pointless urgency. He wiggled his fingers and took in a deep breath. And that was when he got a big whiff of the scent of a hearty merlot, his merlot, and he looked around.

"Do you want a glass?" she asked.

Nash sat up. He was on the bed in the cabin he had shared with Tess in Napa. Dreaming, he thought. I'm dreaming. And then he remembered: No, I'm dead. He looked at the woman holding out the long-stemmed wineglass to him. She wore a black skirt, a green off-the-shoulders top, and a couple large gold necklaces with matching earrings. On her feet was a pair of black stilettos. "Jessica?" he said.

"Strike one," the blonde said, giving him the glass of deep-red wine.

"Tess," he said quietly. He looked around the cabin. Everything was as he remembered, but he knew it wasn't real. He was just imagining this. "Is this some kind of purgatory?" he asked.

Tess laughed that rich, lusty laugh that Nash remembered from so long ago, before things changed and got so - different. "You mean you don't think this is heaven?" she said. "Don't I look like an angel?" she spun around in a circle.

"You're beautiful," Nash said. "But you're no angel."

"Yeah," Tess said. She picked up a bottle and poured herself a glass of wine. "I'm not an angel." She sipped from her glass, and Nash looked at his. The wine in it seemed real enough; he brought it to his lips and tasted it. Damn good, he thought. I did well with this. We could have been world famous, one of the best wineries on the globe. What happened? he wondered. What the hell happened?

"Life," Tess said. "Life happened, like it always does."

"You can hear my thoughts?" Nash said. But then he thought: Of course she can; we're both just figments of my imagination.

"It's not that hard to figure out what you would be thinking right now," Tess said. She sat down beside him on the bed. Everyone always wants to know how the hell things turned out the way they did."

"I made some stupid choices..."

"Everyone does, sweetheart," Tess said, and she tossed back another couple swallows of wine. "Life is a series of stupid choices."

"You should know," Nash said. He set the wine glass on the floor and stood up. He looked down at his body dressed in a white shirt and blue jeans. It was bittersweet to feel the wholeness and strength in that body after having it broken lying on a hospital bed as his life slipped away. It was like some sick joke; now his body was whole, but his life was shattered beyond repair.

"You mean the drugs," Tess said.

"You could have killed Jessica," Nash said. "You could have given our daughter a deadly disease." He looked away. "You could have given it to me," he added.

"It was a mistake," Tess said. "I wanted to be free..."

Nash looked back at her. "It was careless," he said. "And worst of all it was selfish." The room fell silent. Nash walked to the door and out onto the front porch, then down the steps. His heart ached, and that wasn't right, was it? Was your heart still supposed to ache after death? Weren't you supposed to be a peace? Weren't there supposed to be harps and clouds and endless days of joy?

"You're right," Tess said. "It was selfish. That was how I was, because I had been locked up in Jessica for so long. I wanted to do whatever I wanted to do. And I never thought anything like Hep C would ever happen to me." Nash closed his eyes and shook his head. "Of course I never thought love would happen to me either." He heard her walk down the steps and over to him, but he moved away when she touched him. "If I would have known that I would have you and Brennan I would never have taken that risk..."

"Except that's the other thing about life, isn't it?" Nash said, turning on her. "We never know what's coming, right? Like, say, we never know when we're going to get thrown through a skylight two floors to the ground, right?"

"Right," Tess said simply, and what was so horrible was that Nash could see how simple it was. These things happen; ugly, stupid accidents happen, and lives end. It happened every day to people who got up in the morning and had no idea that they wouldn't live to see tomorrow.

"It isn't right," Nash said. "This isn't right. I'm in love with in an incredible woman, I have a beautiful little girl, and I have another child on the way. I'm a young, healthy man. I could do something, I could figure out something with the vineyard or something else. This isn't the right thing. This doesn't make sense." He shook his head again and walked down the path away from the cabin. "I can't be here," he said. "I can't do this."

"You don't have a choice," Tess said.

Nash turned and looked at her. "Oh yeah?" he said. "We'll see about that. Where's the head guy? I want to meet him."

Tess smiled, but her eyes were glistening with tears. "What do you think this is, Nash?" she said, a hint of the old haughtiness in her tone. "Some ancient movie or an episode of The Simpsons? Do you think there's some old guy in white with a long beard who you can sit down with and have a chat?"

Nash looked at her and the cabin and Napa Valley from years ago. No, there probably wasn't any old guy in white about to hop off a cloud and sit down for a talk. There was nothing there at all. None of this was real. "Go away," he said.

Tess's eyes widened. "You don't want..."

"I want Jessica," Nash said. "I want my family. I want my life. If I can't have those things I want to be left alone. I don't want some part of my past that means nothing to me anymore. And I don't want you."

Tears slid down Tess's cheeks. "I loved you from the first day I knew you to the last," she said. She wiped the tears away quickly with both hands. "I'm sorry about what you lost, and I'm sorry for Jessica and your children," she said. She walked past him on the path.

Nash thought quickly, about Napa and so many dark and beautiful days in the lifetime he had lived since he met Tess. And in the end Tess had brought him Jessica and his children and the happiest days of his life, and this was not the right way to handle this. There shouldn't be any more pain here. That was something he had the opportunity to end, and he was going to do it. "I'm sorry too," he said. "There were times when I wished things might have been different, that you could have stayed around or that there was more of you in Jessica." He turned to her. "But I saw you every day," he said. "I saw you in Brennan, your joie de vivre, your mischievousness, your beauty. And I thought: This is good part of Tess, shining through for the world to see. This is my Tess. And because of this little girl she will always be with me."

"Really?" Tess said, her eyes glistening again.

"Really," Nash said. "I loved you, Tess. I loved you with everything I had. And I know you loved me and Brennan."

"I still do," Tess said.

"I know," Nash said. "I didn't forget you. I couldn't have. You're unforgettable."

"So are you," Tess said. She walked back toward him. "No one is going to forget you."

"Yeah, I'm that type that tends to stick in the old brain cells," Nash said.

Tess smiled. "Would it be OK if I gave you a hug?" she asked.

"Yeah," Nash said, and he welcomed her into his arms. "Thank you, Tess, for everything," he said as he embraced her.

"We didn't have enough time," Tess said. "But at least we had some. And for that I will always be thankful."

For a long moment they just held one another in the warm Napa sunlight of days gone by, and in that moment everything was right and true and whole and beautiful.


End file.
